Posted
by
samzenpus
on Monday February 06, 2012 @11:12AM
from the taking-a-look-down-under dept.

suraj.sun writes in with a story about the spread of full body scanners. It reads in part:"Passengers at airports across Australia will be forced to undergo full-body scans or be banned from flying under new laws to be introduced into Federal Parliament this week. In a radical $28 million security overhaul, the scanners will be installed at all international airports from July and follows trials at Sydney and Melbourne in August and September last year. The Government is touting the technology as the most advanced available, with the equipment able to detect metallic and non-metallic items beneath clothing. It's also keen to allay concerns raised on travel online forums that passengers would appear nude on security screens as they had when similar scanners were introduced at U.S. airports. The technology will show passengers on a screen as stick figures of neither sex."

Whether it is or not is irrelevant. The fact is that it could be. Thus, this does nothing to "allay concerns" except perhaps among people who don't know anything at all about how technology works.

Either way, I've just added a country to my list of places I will never have the opportunity to visit as a tourist. Because you could not pay me enough money to walk through those things. Ever. Period. No alternative = no visit. End of story, end of discussion, end of my tourism dollars going to your country

Australia was fairly high on my list of places to visit. I just marked it off the list.

Ditto. Joined the list of countries I won't visit over privacy concerns, right after US and UK.

Dammit, let's keep the big picture in focus here! Now, I am no longer able to be all smug about those stuipd US privacy nuts failing to properly protest getting these into the US and mocking them in patronizing tones. Now I have the idignity of being in the same bucket down here in Australia.

What amazes me thoughis how well this was kept under the radar. I normally think that I am quite abreast of these sort of issues, but now and again they just pop up out of nowhere.

I was flying to Brisbane from Melbourne just before Christmas and my only thought, as I lined up for 20 minutes to get through the huge crowd at security, was that I felt insanely less-safe in that small enclosed space with 200-400 other people than I did on the plane.

If you attack the plane it requires thought, planning, and luck. Compare that to just blowing yourself up in an unmoderated stagnat enclosed queue. They are shifting the threat to another venue that is easier to exploit which can only support the Security Theatre argument.

Then again, Australia has never had a terrorist attack on its soil and ASIO is doing a bang up job getting those who are plotting, so why aren't we giving them this money?

Then again, Australia has never had a terrorist attack on its soil and ASIO is doing a bang up job getting those who are plotting, so why aren't we giving them this money?

ASIO doesn't have lobbyists with the potential to make some serious kickback cash when whatEverCompany sells the government these $30 million dollar machines.

As for the idea of blowing up on a plane or airport lounge, of course, it is utterly farcical. The only reason I could see for someone wanting to take over a plane is to use it a a missle. Otherwise, I don't see it as a logical target, it doesn't make sense. There are loads of potentially much more devastating targets in Australia. Sadly, this sort of

Australia remains a colony in all but name. Australian intelligence agencies are, in effect, branches of the main office in Washington. The Australian military has played a regular role as US mercenary. When prime minister Gough Whitlam tried to change this in 1975 and secure Australia's partial independence, he was dismissed by a governor-general using archaic "reserve powers" who was revealed to have intelligence connections.

WikiLeaks has given Australians a rare glimpse of how their country is run. In 2010, leaked US cables disclosed that key government figures in the Labor Party coup that brought Julia Gillard to power were "protected" sources of the US embassy: what the CIA calls "assets". Kevin Rudd, the prime minister she ousted, had displeased Washington by being disobedient, even suggesting that Australian troops withdraw from Afghanistan.

In the wake of her portentous rise ascent to power, Gillard attacked WikiLeaks as "illegal" and her attorney-general threatened to withdraw Assange's passport. Yet the Australian Federal Police reported that Assange and WikiLeaks had broken no law. Freedom of information files have since revealed that Australian diplomats have colluded with the US in its pursuit of Assange. This is not unusual. The government of John Howard ignored the rule of law and conspired with the US to keep David Hicks, an Australian citizen, in Guantanamo Bay, where he was tortured. Australia's principal intelligence organisation, ASIO, is allowed to imprison refugees indefinitely without explanation, prosecution or appeal.http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3806462.html [abc.net.au]

I'm not defending the actions of the GG or the GG's ability to dissolve parliament, but Gough Whitlam was dismissed because the opposition had control of the senate and refused to pass any budget he put forward. The country was about about to be paralysed due to the government no longer being able to pay anyone (much like nearly happened in the US recently, but didn't for different reasons). He wasn't dismissed for not doing what the US wanted. Also the GG's powers aren't archaic, they are there because the

It can also be spelled 'toqué', 'tuque', or 'tuqué' depending on which part of the country you're from and which keys are on your keyboard or whether you know the character codes.

In Nova Scotia, PEI and Newfoundland I primary see it spelled 'tuke'.
The spellings 'toqué', or 'tuqué' are the french spellings, which I know are used in Quebec and New Brunswick.
The rest of the country it's one of the three, but without the acute e -> é

The problem that it solves is the ability to fly aircraft to the USA - the US lays down the requirements for the security of flights that are flying to a US airport or over their airspace, and if the flights do not meet the requirements, tehy do not fly direct (see the issue of the Pakistan International Airlines issues where for a long long time after they bought their brand new Boeing 777s, they had to do a stop over in Manchester, UK on all Pakistan-USA flights, deboard the aircraft and everyone was put through UK security before the plane could depart for the US (the plane was also subject to search while the passengers were offloaded).

If the security measures do not match up to what the US wants, you have problems flying to the US...

What any sane goverment should do is just that, clean their hands of all the hassle of traveling to the US, till every passsanger or turist thinks twice about doing so. The dependence on the US and the following import of laws and regulations is doing no favors to any other country.

Australia would loose no tourists at all, the US would (and has). In business, maybe the added difficulty would provide incentives to do business with other countries, lessening the dependence and interconnecting the world in a better, healthier way. The point is how much crap are people going to take for short term gains. When do we begin to say: Stop, no more, time to look for alternatives!

Yes, when only 10 years ago, the AUD was around 50 US cents. And even then, things were slightly more expensive in Australia than the US. Now that the AUD is worth more than the US (and domestic prices haven't halved, you know)...

Basically an American in Australia is paying 2x - 3x as much as they would for the same thing at home these days. Doesn't affect the Aussies since they are earning AUD, and doesn't affect those from places using currencies that have also appreciated a lot against the USD in the last few years, but for Americans, AU would be close to the most expensive place on earth right now.

I used to happily fly to the USA at least twice a year, for work (employer has offices there) and vacation (I have relatives there). I even thought of emigrating there, I could probably get a visa without too much trouble as a senior working in IT and a fair amount of personal assets.

With all the hassles of flying to the USA, I now try and avoid it, managing to reduce my trips by one or two a year. Total cost to the US economy is about US$3000 per trip. There must be many others doing likewise. Cost to the US economy overall is probably millions of dollars, a direct loss to the travel industry (airline, hotel, car hire, restaurants, entertainment etc). Add in the burden to the economy to support all the spurious security measures and it adds insult to injury.

With all the hassles of flying to the USA, I now try and avoid it, managing to reduce my trips by one or two a year. Total cost to the US economy is about US$3000 per trip. There must be many others doing likewise. Cost to the US economy overall is probably millions of dollars, a direct loss to the travel industry (airline, hotel, car hire, restaurants, entertainment etc). Add in the burden to the economy to support all the spurious security measures and it adds insult to injury.

Was about to post something similar - flying into the US is now so unpleasant, demeaning and intimidating that it actually has a serious impact on the decision about whether to fly there or go somewhere where unaccountable uniformed guards won't treat me like a likely criminal, fingerprint me and scan my retinas.

That only works because other nations willingly accept this. I'd like to see the day where the US security moguls state that as of now, no flight from Australia can land in the US due to security concerns like they did with the flights out of Pakistan (I didn't know that btw. Interesting).

You can do something like that with a country where you have little to no economic dealings. Try that with a country in the EU, Eastern Asia or Australia and you'll be surprised by the reactions both locally and abroad. If

Seriously. Who don't more people ask this? Check out the Wikipedia article Terrorism in Australia [wikipedia.org] and notice not only the shortness of the article, but also the distinct lack of aviation attacks. It will only take one death from cancer caused by these body scanners and they will have caused more aviation deaths in Australia than terrorists.

I have to wonder about this too. Depending on the way the scans are done I'm sure that there will be medical reasons some people won't be able to go through the scanner. The ones in the US force me to not go through the scanner because I'm type one diabetic and have an insulin pump / real time blood glucose sensor. I find it hard to believe that all cases will be covered as far as medical equipment and safety of the scanners.

its not even the nude thing for me, I don't want to be irradiated by these machine until they are proven safe. I don't really have any body issues and will happily strip naked and parade up and down the concourse and allow their security guards to fondle my genitals for a reasonable period of time to ensure nothing is hidden therein, but I do not want to be irradiated by these machines until they are proven safe.

Concerns of the levels of radiation being safe or unsafe doesn't matter to me. What matters is the fact that numerous experts have proven the scanners to be completely ineffective at stopping threats and that is what people should care about.

Why expose yourself to the radiation in the first place? I refuse these machines every time I travel domestically and if they are required by some other country I'm not going to go there just wish everyone else did the same.

The radiation you get from airplane travel is full-body and full-spectrum, consisting of X-Rays, Gamma rays, radio waves, and everything in between.

The radiation you get from the terahertz scanners deposits all of its energy into your skin, in a small band of frequencies. That makes it potentially more likely to cause skin cancer than the broadband, full body radiation you get from air travel.

Look, either of these sources is insignificant compared to the energy you get from spending a minute out in the sunlight. But the type of energy and where it is deposited matters, and the terahertz scanners have not been proven safe. Making them mandatory is short-sighted and stupid...and inevitable, given the way governments work.

You've got your technologies confused. The back-scatter-type body scanners utilize x-ray back scatter, and I think we can all agree that x-rays are ionizing radiation with known biological effects. Sure, they levels may be very low, but repeated low-level exposure to ionizing radiation can be dangerous, and it's not so simple as just dismissing it as non-ionizing radiation.

The other type of scanner are terahertz millimeter-wave scanners. While not technically ionizing, terahertz radiation is much more energetic than UHF microwaves, and the jury is still out on their exact biological effects.

Until they allay the concerns of being irradiated I don't think I'll be visiting Australia.

Yes, the amount of radiation is theoretically small, but if one flies a lot, getting irradiated frequently is not something I wish to subject myself to, nor is something that I should be forced to undergo, especially when there are no good studies of the effects of the radiation from these machines.

... the amount of radiation is theoretically small, but if one flies a lot,...

The problem with sort of reasoning is that it assumes proper maintenance of the equipment. We've already seen some pretty bad news about the maintenance level (and the resulting radiation levels) of the scanning equipment in the US and some other countries. Do you want to trust that every Australian airport with keep all their scanners tuned up and well within spec?

I keep thinking it'd be interesting if someone were to carry a few radiation meters in their pockets, which would of course be detected, b

well geez, can't they just have another pointless war? that would have to have a higher profit margin than this and also the bonus of heavy influence over new resource allocation. Or is this for those contractors that didn't do well in the war machine bidding?

As I posted further up in the comments, this is due to requirements laid down by the US for all flights to the US or that go via US airspace - Australia are just making it easy for themselves and setting it as a standard for all flights.

As an aside, Im not sure why Australia are getting all the attention - I flew back from Uganda on Friday and hit Schipol just as the snows started. In Schipol they have full body scanners at all gates, and also between the Schengen zone countries and non-Schengen zone countries terminals - as my flight was cancelled, I ended up going through about 20 of them in a 24 hour period, several times asking for a patdown instead (when they were having problems with the scanner) and being refused.

I had the "privilege" of going through the Sydney international hub quite a few times over the past 5 years. I'm a US citizen. I've been to Australia quite a few times the first of which was 1989. Back then I noticed that my accent and demeanor got me a lot of very friendly greetings, people assumed I was Canadian. I learned it was in my interest to not correct them.

Flying in and out of Sydney of late I noticed that a large number of Non-Aussies were getting pulled from the international line for "random" security pat downs. In each case the guards were very verbal about letting us know it was only random. But I don't think so. I had a 3 hr layover on one flight so I parked myself up in the food court which has a perfect view of the security check points for this area. And in 2 hrs of watching I never once saw an Aussie get a random pat down on an international flight. On the return flight I had the same layover and repeated my observation with the exact results. I even went so far as to get prepped for the patdown while in line. When they pulled me I was ready and the guard asked me why. I said: "You pull all the foreigners out, so I just wanted to speed this up." He protested saying it was random and I told him random does not equal 100%.

Time and time again I've been told by Aussie and Kiwi friends that the US military companies are in bed with the Aussie gov't and are selling paranoia at at premium. This news only solidifies that for me and confirms that I'll never return to Oz again. I just hope that Aotearoa remains a bastion of pacific sanity.

The distribution of a single sample is not statistically required to reflect the full distribution; the probability of that particular sample goes down, but never equals zero. This is why anecdotes get so much distrust.

That said, I currently have an "additional screening" rate of greater than 90% in the US, while my wife is never selected. I have to wonder if things would be different, were there more prominent female terrorists.

This is incorrect I always get patted down flying out of Australia. I reckon chocolate sets their detector thing off as I always have chocolate (cheapest drink) while waiting to fly out of the airport.

And in 2 hrs of watching I never once saw an Aussie get a random pat down on an international flight.

Just checking, but you do realise that not all Australians are white, right? Given that you don't generally have to show your passport when you go through security in Australia, I'm not sure what you're basing your assessment of "Aussie" vs "non-Aussie" on.

In my experience, the factors which affect "extra" security in Australia are: walking speed (slower = more likely to get stopped), eye contact (making it = more likely to get stopped), having a beard (beard = likely terrorist), being male (less perceived

Either they face reality that over 140+ people on average have access to a single airplane and that it cannot be made "safe" in absolute terms or they will loose my business and get some free bad publicity...

Fearmongering does not work, it never has and never will.

As far as those two tower are concerned: more people are dying of cancer every week than that people died that day... look at how much is being invested in that!Or was there a war on cancer?

This is very disappointing, especially after the EU passed strict body scanner regulations [slashdot.org], which both banned X-ray scanners and required passengers be allowed to opt-out of non-X-ray scanners. Germany scrapped all body scanners, not just because of the health concerns, but because they actually don't work [slashdot.org]. I know someone who accidentally took his pocket knife through security and the body scanner didn't detect it. These things aren't making anyone safer: between the decreased effectiveness and the cancer risk, they're actually making flying more dangerous.

Back in July 2011, I flew out of LAX. I got to the security check and they told me to go through the scanner. I said no way. I was looked at like I am a terrorist (I look more like a young Steve Jobs than a terrorist). As the TSA employee is molesting me, I mean conducting an enhanced pat-down, he tries to strike up a conversation with me. He asks me if I have kids. I said "yes, why?" He says "Well, typically the only guys that don't want to go through the full-body scan haven't have kids yet. So why didn't you want to go through the scanner?" I said "I don't want to get cancer.......again." He said "Oh, I would have done the same thing." His attitude changed and he finished quickly.

Yep, last time I refused to go through the X-ray scanner (at Phoenix) and got patted down, when the TSA molestor asked me if there's any place he couldn't touch because it'd be painful, I pointed to the giant scar on my neck where a tumor was removed from my throat only a week before.

Oh sure, then we'll need checkpoints to get to the checkpoints to get to the checkpoints. I can't wait for the day every vehicle traveling to AND from the airport is xrayed, full body scan to enter and leave building, with another scan plus a pat down to enter and leave the terminal.

Well, you could go by cargo ship. It's about the same price as flying, sometimes less, takes longer. Meals are almost always included, some require you to bring your own food or pay on ship. But it's a hell of a lot of fun, most of the time the crew is pretty decent having someone new on board and don't mind showing people around, or even having someone else to do things with. You can get private, shared cabins or crew bunks.

You'll still have to do port of entry calls and all that, but it will save you from having to go through the airport and the scanners. I did a trip from Halifax to Panama and back for round trip $400 back in '03ish on two different Maersk cargo ships. I stayed a week in Panama and returned. If you want to experience something unique, try it.

Contact the cargo line of your choice. Then ask them to put you in contact with their passenger service. Simple as that. Nearly all of them do it still, though I do believe that some of the satellites of Maersk no longer do. You can also just use google. People actually act as travel agents doing all the hard work for you.